Insomniac Heath Ledger was "Beaming" in his Last Movie

Heath Ledger suffered from chronic insomnia during filming of his final flick The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, says the movie’s director Terry Gilliam.

“I will say that he wasn’t sleeping very well. He did have insomnia,” Terry tells the U.K’s Sunday Times newspaper, “He’d arrive in the mornings… He hadn’t slept and he looked like s***.”

But on set it was a different story for the Australian actor who died of an accidental overdose on Jan. 22, 2008, aged 28. Terry describes Heath, who stars in the surreal fairy tale movie, slated for release next month, as “beaming”.

“It was like that during the day,” the director says, “He just couldn’t wait to get back to work and play again, and he would have been even better having slept properly.”

What about talk that playing the Joker in The Dark Knight (which earned Heath a posthumous Oscar) had prompted his fatal depression? “That’s all bollocks,” scoffs Terry, who made his name directing the Monty Python movies.

“We spoke about the Joker, and he said it was fun beyond belief to play that character. Honestly, when people are giving out all those s*** stories about him getting so dark and inside the character… this was just utter fun for him.”